July 9, 2018
Norman (Edmund Burke: The First Conservative) takes aim at the carapace of myth that obscures the real legacy of Smith, the Scottish thinker whose Wealth of Nations, first published in 1776, outlined the functioning of a modern market economy. Too often, Norman argues, Smith has been wrongly seen as the progenitor of laissez-faire capitalism, an economic libertarian, and a misogynist whose careful calculations of supply and demand leave no room for the hidden household labor of women. To counter this vision of the boy from Kirkcaldy as a market fundamentalist, Norman provides a thoughtful and accessible overview of Smith’s work interspersed with historical context on the Scottish Enlightenment. He argues convincingly that Smith’s greatest insight was his notion of mutual sympathy, the human ability to imagine ourselves in the place of others and thus reflect in turn on our own behavior, and it is this reciprocal vision of social interaction, rather than the narrow self-interest typically associated with Smith, that is the true basis for market exchange. Indeed, Smith was more interested in morals than money and would have condemned the crony capitalism and income inequality that dominate contemporary economic life. This is a stimulating introduction to an often misunderstood figure in the history of economic thought.